


Use Your Words

by Batsymomma11



Series: Blark Files [18]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Superman - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Best Friends, Fluff, Friends With Benefits, Idiots in Love, Implied Sexual Content, Long-Term Relationship(s), M/M, Mild Language, ish?, not really - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-22
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2020-01-24 02:32:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18562150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Batsymomma11/pseuds/Batsymomma11
Summary: Clark and Bruce have been indulging in a friends-with-benefits sort of arrangement for months and everything seems to be working fine. Until it isn't. Because feelings are sticky things and Bruce might have some. But so might Clark.





	Use Your Words

**Author's Note:**

> I know I've got some long-term fics on here I should be updating and am totally not. There has literally been no muse for it. So, ya'll get another Blark one-shot, because they make me happy and that's what is coming out of me. :p
> 
> I do not own DC or its characters. Thanks for reading and enjoy!

_“I need to speak with you.”_

                “What is it, Clark? I’m running late for a meeting at the Tower and I don’t have much spare time.”

                _“Can you cancel it?”_

“What?” Bruce hesitated, letting a few Wayne Tech employees rush past him out of the rain. It was pummeling the city in sheets, flooding the gutters and overflowing the sidewalks. Typical weather for early spring in Gotham.

                He hated it.  

                _“Can you cancel the meeting? It’s—it’s important.”_

Bruce could never a recall a time in all their relationship, be it when they were just friends or—whatever it was they were now—where Clark had asked him to cancel a meeting for work. Ever. But there was an undercurrent in Clark’s voice, a flare of something that made the hair on Bruce’s neck rise into pinpricks and his belly painfully hollow.

                “I’ll cancel then.”

                _“Good. I’ll be there soon. Wait for me?”_

Bruce swallowed, pressed his shoulder blades into the hallway wall, watched the morning rush of traffic thin, then answered, “Yes. I’ll wait. Penthouse?”

                _“That would be good.”_

For what?

                Bruce didn’t ask. He didn’t really need to. It was written in the way Clark’s voice was catching over the phone. In the pleading note that underlined his request for Bruce to cancel his meeting. Clark was finally going to end things.

                And Bruce understood that. He’d known in the beginning that it couldn’t last. It wouldn’t.

                He and Clark long term didn’t make a great deal of sense and after all—it was only one friend helping another friend out, occasionally. Wasn’t that right?

                Yes.

                Yes, it was.

                Bruce took the elevator to the penthouse and ditched his tie and jacket the minute he was inside. He slipped off his shoes on the way to the kitchen, unbuttoning his dress shirt collar, then his sleeves so he could shove them to his elbows. His skin felt flushed, head to toe. Bruce had never dealt with rejection well. Which was hardly fair, considering all the rejection he tended to dole out on a daily basis.

                But this—this was different.

                Bruce leaned on the counter beside the sink, bracing his weight as he blankly looked out the windows into the deluge. The sick feeling in his gut hadn’t fled and likely wouldn’t. Now that he knew what Clark was coming to do. Now that he knew things were really going to be over.

                He let himself stare for long minutes, pretending for a breath that nothing was wrong, and it was one of their rare nights away together. One of those stolen moments, the ones that no one knew about and would never know about where he got to let go of everything and just be. It helped very little to stimmy the flood of unwanted bitterness that clung to the back of his throat.

                Bruce had time to get himself a glass of scotch on the rocks. He didn’t particularly care that it was only ten in the morning. What difference did it make? After Clark left, he wouldn’t be able to go anywhere, let alone function. He knew himself well enough for that. He’d need a day, possibly two to hide and lick his wounds. Then he’d resurface and pretend like nothing had ever happened.

                He could do that.

                He could.

                Clark came ten minutes later when Bruce was halfway through another glass of scotch and in his second favorite perch of the city, the sliding doors off the patio. There was a rooftop pool and a garden. When it wasn’t raining, it felt like being in a resort. It made it feel like the smog that clung to the buildings far down below, didn’t really exist at all.

                “Hey,” Clark said quietly beside the front door. He’d not stepped more than two paces inside, dripping rainwater all over the tile.

                Bruce smiled, keeping his expression carefully neutral. There was no sense in making this harder than it needed to be. Clark had every right to end things. He had every right to no longer be comfortable with their arrangement. That was to be expected after all.

                “Did you fly?”

                Clark shrugged, little tear-like droplets cascading down the trench he was wearing with the movement, “Yes. I don’t mind the rain.”

                “It suits you.”

                Clark’s mouth twitched but remained stubbornly flat and Bruce took a deep breath, then turned back to look out the sliders. This was harder than he thought it was going to be. He didn’t want to do this in person. It would have been better if Clark had been tacky and just sent a text. Far better.

                “We need to talk.”

                “Yes,” Bruce nodded, closing his eyes, focusing on his breath as it struggled into the tightness of his chest, “You said that.”

                “Bruce, the other night—the other night was different.”

                “Was it?”

                “You know it was,” Clark’s voice sounded thin, “You know it. Don’t try and say it wasn’t.”

                “Alright,” Bruce rolled his shoulders, pressed his forehead into the cold of the glass, “Maybe it was. Why do we need to discuss it?”

                “Because, because you said—you said that you loved me.”

                Bruce flinched, every muscle in his body coiling, “People say a lot of things when they’re having sex.”

                “Is that all we’re having?”           

                Bruce felt Clark near him, so near he could tell the heat of the other man’s body was warming the space between them, fogging up the chilly glass. “That’s all it’s ever been.”

                “It hasn’t been just sex for weeks, Bruce.”

                “That’s not—”  
                “Please. Please don’t insult me by saying that I’m lying.”

                “Clark,” Bruce whispered the name because there wasn’t much else that wanted to come out of him. Because he didn’t know what else to say. Because the ache beneath his breast bone felt so overpowering, so overwhelming, he didn’t know what else to do. It was a plea, a promise, and prayer in one.

                “Tell me you meant it. Tell me it wasn’t an accident.”

                “Clark, I—”

                “Please, tell me.”

                Bruce was unprepared for Clark to grab him, let alone crush him into the glass. Every part of Clark was an inferno of heat and muscle, of power. Humming and hissing with something that looked an awful lot like rage.

                “Clark—”

                Bruce tried to say something else. He tried to be the level one. The coherent one. The—responsible one, but the assault on his person was too great. Clark was everywhere at once.

                His mouth was on the back of Bruce’s neck, kissing and nipping, teeth grazing the skin like he meant to bite and mark Bruce forever. His hands, so strong and unforgiving were immediately on Bruce’s, weaving their fingers together, till one could not tell one set of hands from the other. Clark felt immense at his back, around him, pressing in and grinding, there was little else to do but brace and then—God he couldn’t help it.

                He choked past one moan, two, then rolled and Clark let him so they could fit their mouths together. The reaction was purely chemical. It was nothing to do with emotions when Clark dragged him back to the bedroom and tore him from his clothes. It was purely carnal. One friend, fulfilling another’s needs. Bruce knew that. He believed it.

                He did.

                But then—then Clark slowed the pace and when they were in the thick of it and he was close, so close, Bruce could tell that Clark wasn’t just getting something physical from their interaction. It wasn’t just a release. It was something else. For him too. God, it was very much for him too.

                “Bruce, baby, please,” Clark chanted into his ear, damp breath making Bruce shiver.

                He squirmed as Clark slowed even more and held him still, patience seeming so absolute, they could remain entwined the whole of the day, with nowhere else to be. Bruce felt like he was going to implode. His body screamed for release, his mind begged for the truth. For any truth. It begged for cohesion between what was happening to him and what needed to happen, but he didn’t—he wasn’t—

                “Bruce, say it.”

                “I—” Bruce started, his voice wrecked, “I don’t know if I can.”

                “You can. You can say it. I know you can. You already did it once.” Clark peppered his face in kisses, his throat, his collarbones, and Bruce sluggishly tried to reciprocate. He felt drugged.

                “Say it, sweetheart. Say it again.”

                “I never meant to. I didn’t mean—”

                “You did.”

                “I don’t—” Bruce knew that Clark was right. They both did.

Clark’s grip moved to Bruce’s hips, his thumbs a steady counter-pressure to the span of his fingers on Bruce’s pelvis. Bruce nearly saw white at the slight change of position. It was too much. All of it. “Say it, B. Please.”

                “Will—” Bruce blinked, curled his legs tighter around Clark and then felt a bubble of shame when the backs of his eyes burned and the vision of Clark looming above him swam, “Will you stay if I don’t?”

                “What?”

                Everything stopped.

               Clark froze his perfect jaw and nose, the color of his cornflower eyes all under a sea of salty tears. Bruce sucked in a breath then tossed an arm over his face to hide what was happening because it certainly wasn’t pretty. He didn’t want anyone to see him break. Especially not Clark.

                “Bruce, I was never—this wasn’t an ultimatum. You don’t—God, sweetheart, you don’t have to say it again. Ever.”

                “I thought—I thought you were coming to end things this morning. I thought—that you would be happier. Because our relationship has never been ideal and—and you warned me, in the beginning, you weren’t sure you could just casually fuck your best friend and not get attached.”

                “Then why on Earth would I ever go anywhere? Especially when I love you.”

                “I’ve never said it back. Not really. And the one time I did—I didn’t mean—I never wanted to say it. I don’t know if I can again.” Bruce tried to roll away, tried to find a space to hide and get room, but Clark didn’t move an inch. It hardly seemed like the time to be having this conversation while quite literally in the middle of having sex.

                Clark apparently thought that it was a perfect time.

                “Words aside, how do you feel about me, Bruce?”

                “I care about you. You know that.”

                “In what terms?”

                “Can we wait to have this conversation?”

                Clark lifted a brow, moving in exactly not the way Bruce was planning, making him hiss and arch. “I wasn’t finished. And neither are you.”

                “So—by all means—let’s finish right—now. Then talk.”

                “No. Not while I have you like this.”

                “You’re insidious,” Bruce groaned again when Clark decided to be merciful and started moving in earnest. It didn’t take long for either of them. Bruce was strung out so thin, he sailed over the finish line in time to see Clark follow shortly after. They held each other close, skin sticky, hearts pounding and Clark, dear sweet man that he was, nuzzled right into Bruce’s neck and whispered, ‘I love you’, as if it didn’t rip Bruce clean in two. The words that had threatened it all in the first place. The words that no one should ever say to Bruce, because he didn’t deserve it. He didn’t deserve anything.

                Especially not from a boy scout from Kansas who still sent money home to his mama.

                “I can’t say it back.”

                “But you feel it back.”

                Bruce opened his mouth to argue because he damn well should. He wanted to refute Clark. To say it wasn’t like that for him. The other night was an accident. That he’d warned Clark in the beginning that it wouldn’t be the same for him because he wasn’t meant to love.

But that would be a lie. Because he did feel it. Because underneath it all, he desperately wanted to love Clark. It just frightened him.

                “It’s not enough.”

                “Who told you that?”

                Bruce smoothed a hand through Clark’s hair, “Everyone.”

He lifted his head and smirked at Bruce, trying and somewhat failing to look nonchalant rather than endearingly stubborn. “Do I look like everyone to you?”

                “No,” Bruce shook his head, “No, you don’t.”

                “Then let’s not worry about everyone else and just do what works for us.”

                “And you’ll be okay with rooftop sex and never hearing the words you want? That’s really not going to run you down? Please, Clark, be realistic.”

                “I am, Bruce. I’m being realistic for the first time in months. I knew from the moment we kissed in the showers after sparring in the Watchtower that this was never going to be a simple fuck-buddy situation. I knew that. And I still had sex with you. I still kept having sex with you. And I still fell in love with you. There’s nothing you can do to undo that. It’s done.”

                “You deserve better.”

                Clark scowled, “No. I don’t.”

                “Clark, you’re high on dopamine and—”

                “Shhh,” Clark shushed him, pressing a wide palm over Bruce’s mouth to stop the argument in its tracks. “I’m hungry and I think French Toast sounds amazing. Don’t you?”

                Bruce blinked up at Clark, then lifted a brow when Clark slowly peeled his hand away.

                “It’s almost lunch.”

                “And?”

                “And—” Bruce swallowed past the lump in his throat and glanced away. He was too grateful. Too overwhelmed. “And I want—I want strawberries on mine.”

                “I’ll just bet Alfred has you stocked.”

                “Probably.”

                “Come on,” Clark finally let him up, then tugged forcefully on Bruce’s wrist to drag him off the mattress, “Let’s go.”

                “Can I get dressed first?”

                “No.”

                “That’s highly unsanitary.”

                Clark grinned wolfishly over one shoulder, his grip tightening on Bruce’s wrist, “That should be the least of your concerns.”

                  



End file.
